Evilnick
Evilnick
Type Boot sector virus
Creator
Date Discovered 1989.05.23
Place of Origin United Kingdom
Source Language
Platform Atari ST
Infection Length 1 boot sector
Reported Costs

Evilnick, or sometimes just Evil is a boot sector virus for the Atari ST. It was discovered in 1989 by Jeremy Hughes. The virus manipulates a common Atari ST antivirus program into thinking disks infected with it are system disks.

Behavior

When an Evilnick infected disk is booted, it becomes memory resident by hooking Resvector and Hdv_bpb. It will survive a reset. It infects disks in the A or B drive as they become active. The virus was resistant to Ultimate Virus Killer versions created before its appearence.

Evilnick has a payload of inverting the screen colors, triggered after it has made 100 copies of itself. In the virus body, the text "EVIL ! - A Gift from Old Nick" can be found.

Origin and Effects

The virus came from England, but was most widespread in Scandinavia. To hide it from Ultimate Virus Killer, Evilnick's creator used an early version of the software to disguise it as a system disk.

Sources

Richard Karsmakers. THE KNOWN VIRUSES ON ATARI TOS COMPUTERS AND THEIR SYMPTOMS.

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